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Keywords Leadership, Task analysis
Abstract Organizational viability depends in part on effective leadership. Effective leaders engage in both professional leadership behaviors (e.g. setting a mission, creating a process for achieving goals, aligning processes and procedures) and personal leadership behaviors (e.g. building trust, caring for people, acting morally). A model of professional and personal leadership's impact on willing cooperation was developed and tested. Respondents provided perceptions of the leadership of their organizations and reported the extent to which they willingly cooperate with their organization's leadership. Perceptions of "organizational" leadership as opposed to individual leaders were measured. The direct effects of personal and professional leadership on willing cooperation were examined. Personal leadership was also examined as a mediator of professional leadership's impact on willing cooperation. Results revealed support for a mediated model. Specifically, professional leadership was related to the presence of willing cooperation (β - 0.44) and personal leadership was related to the presence of willing cooperation (β = 0.71). Finally, following a strategy developed by Baron and Kenny, personal leadership was shown to be a mediator of the relationship between professional leadership and the presence of willing cooperation. Limitations as well as research and practical implications are discussed.
Introduction
Organizational viability depends in part on effective leadership. Effective leaders engage in both professional leadership behaviors (e.g. setting a mission, creating a process for achieving goals, aligning processes and procedures) and personal leadership behaviors (e.g. building trust, caring for people, acting morally). Interestingly, most of what we know about leadership comes from the examination of how employees relate to their immediate supervisors. However, examining individual perceptions of "leadership" at the organizational level is an interesting proposition. At first glance, it may seem that professional leadership behaviors such as aligning processes and procedures may be more easily conceptualized at the organizational level than personal leadership behaviors such as acting morally. However, recent events such as Enron and WorldCom suggest the important impact of personal leadership. In these cases, negative personal leadership behaviors were present throughout the organization and the consequences were dramatic. The premise of the current research is that perceptions of professional and personal leadership exist at the organizational level and its impact on followers can be examined. Further, although leaders may come and go, appropriate...